1.) A brief history of your internal segregation:
(1a.) Your 100% internal segregation did not happen circumstantially but was created intentionally, by ethnically cleansing Palestinians, handing Palestinian property to Jews, forbidding present absentees to return, and forcing them into ghettos. (1b.) Institutional restraints and racism ensured that Palestinian citizens could not get out of the ghettos to compete in a free market for jobs and housing. (1c.) These ghettos became sources of cheap labor to you. (1d.) Palestinian citizens were under direct military rule until 1966, and subject to emergency laws; the damage has never been economically redressed by you. (1e.) Palestinian citizens are not granted permits to expand in their ghettos, causing overcrowding. (1f) Palestinians go to separate schools where the educational agendas are decided by the Zionist Ministry of Education, so, for example, it is against the law to learn the history of the Nakba, and Hebrew is taught minimally, ensuring that there is minimal integration into your work force. (1g.) In your institutionally segregated state, packages and privileges are given to former IDFers and New Olim. (1h.) Meanwhile, Palestinians have to fight a supreme court every time one of them wants to move into housing that has Zionist selection committees on which you sit. (1i.) Areas with a Palestinian majority are under official programs of Judaization, so that your heavily-invested Jewish towns are strategically located to stifle Palestinian natural growth and create a subservient economy.

2.) Economic significance of Israel’s internal segregation:
(2a.) The total segregation of every facet of life inside Israel creates artificial wealth gaps and power gaps between you and Palestinian citizens. Carried to its logical end, Palestinian citizens don’t have power to defend themselves if and when they protest against Zionist policies, because Zionist forces taught Zionist ideology in Zionist schools can crush them brutally. (2b.) As a corollary, segregation leads to the expansion of Israel’s most lucrative export, the military industrial complex. (2c.) Total segregation structures ignorance, fear and racism against the de-humanized Palestinian group. (2d.) Gaps widen over time due to generational transfer via inheritance of stolen property. (2e.) You as a group derive a surplus from the expropriated property, re-investing it in their own ethnically controlled institutions and businesses. (2f.) Over and beyond this, a segregated “Jewish State” with successful Jewish structures attracts donations and contributions from Zionists living abroad. Zionist “philanthropists” like to donate to the so-called “Jewish State,” in order to maintain the separation. (2f.) If the purpose of a “Jewish State” is to reward Jewish Israelis for not mixing, it follows that if there wasn’t a regime of segregation, there wouldn’t be a point of a “Jewish State”.

3.) Israel’s economic forecast in desegregation:
(3a.) In the first place, desegregation will come hand in hand with economic redistribution. Desegregation entails compensation, restitution, and affirmative action. (3b.) As Palestinians become integrated into the formerly Jewish-only economy, you will lose your sources of cheap labor (construction workers, sanitation workers, hospital workers.) You will lose your real estate value as Palestinian citizens move into your neighborhood. (3c.) As mentioned above: less foreign investors and donors. (3d.) The prospect of desegregation may or may not put to question the continuation of the current level of US capital flows to Israel, you can decide that for yourself.

"Why shouldn’t Israel be able to maintain its high tech edge without the occupation?"

You missed the point which was that economically, socially and politically Israel is unable to get out of the corner it has walked itself into, and it's going to start leaping at the walls. And they've started jumping already.

However, that said, one's a little sensitive to statements beginning with "If the watching world really wants peace." Thanks, the watching world has done enough supplying arms. Now trying to push Israel into a 2ss is too little and, luckily, too late. Now we get at them from all directions and tickle their feet and give them no rest. Now we talk compensation and desegregation. Let them make their cartoon videos.

As you know, Israel's economic edge isn't riding on the occupation, it's all riding on their deep segregation within.

Exhibit one. Infantilization is what happens when the elite of a technologically advanced country is composed of people who are raised on the milk of ignorance, racial separation, military omnipotence and propaganda.

How can you market something so perverse? With perverse, shameless, bizarre sales pitches. The other day we had Ari Shavit cheapening Dr. King’s legacy in order to sell the Zio-junk, now they’re selling the Zio-junk by painting it blond.

And if no one'll take this bloody Zio-junk, they’ll pay you to work for them and sell it to others. Right Hophmee? Yonah Fredman?

@echinococcus, the Munayyer-Beinart debates convinced me again that Israel's regimes of segregation are not just a dimension of the problem, it is the core. You can't 'end' apartheid in israel, Israel IS apartheid. So much is riding on theJewish State's internal segregation alone: mass ignorance, mass self-entitlement, ominpotence, American donations, weapons selling, killings, massacres. Now they've tortured a 22 year old Palestinian to death by making him lie under a truck dying for three hours, while forbidding anyone to help him. Hyper-segregation inside Israel is why it can go on. But if you weaken the core columns of internal segregation the structure of inequality collapses.

Reducing that segregation from 100% down to none? Ya it's a revolutionary task, no one looks for easy struggle. The regime of segregation can be unconsciously brought down by the force of circumstance, or, it can be brought by consciousness and organization.

Hatim Kanaaneh is criticizing the NYT caption which ridiculously starts, "Kashua, who was born in the predominantly Arab town of Tira...."

To this he quips, "’Predominantly’ as in ‘one hundred percent’” ; “An essential element of truth [100% segregation] is missing here that doesn’t even occur to the American reader. The smoke screen is so heavy one doesn’t even know it is there”; “ The reader is left with the impression that Arabs and Jews in Israel mix at will in their residential choices. But Mr. Keret, you and I know that Arabs and Jews in Israel live in segregated communities. And the racial exclusion mechanism on the Jewish side has just been given the blessing of the Supreme Court of Israel. In so-called mixed cities like Lod and Ramla, Arab slums are separated from Jewish neighborhoods by concrete walls and barbed wire."

So let’s first agree to a basic civil rights axiom: in 100% segregated cities there can’t be a question of equal power.

If this is agreed, let’s go a step further.

All Palestinians everywhere need is equal rights, AND power.

Palestinians say BDS, but citizens wait for the Zionist court every time one of us gets brains to attempt moving their family out of the ghetto into Jewish Only Land.

Of course, some people like living in the ghetto. Because they think the big advantages of living close and cuddly outweighs economic strength, liberty and power. Still others like the ghetto because they’ve become big doctors in Jewish cities and party members in the Knesset. Here we have Odeh giving up refugee rights in all of Palestine, promoting “the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state"; “his audience will include every major Israeli politician…and Sarkozy.” (He's been promised “committees” to “discuss” “reforms”.)

It’s not that Palestinians don’t have power in reserve. The one single thing Jewish Israelis are scared the hell of is those on the inside of the power structure. The citizens.

We all know Palestinian citizens are brutally put down every time they protest against inequality. Because they don’t have power.

Those Labor liberals, those Jewish Israeli Ashkenazim with real estate, will freak out when the talk comes round to reducing that 100% segregation to 0%. There may be some White Flight, but then, where to run to keep that real estate value? Not to speak of those who don’t even know there IS a segregated Jewish State, because their segregated school made sure they will never see any human forms there.

The only reason to accept any unequal treatment of citizens is simply because those being unequally treated don't have power. So the Beinert-Munayyer debate brought here on MW crystallized that Palestinians need not only justice, but POWER.

A >100% segregated country cannot in any way, shape, or form allow equal power. If Palestinians want power they'll have to accept that the 100% segregation will have to be narrowed to 0%.

To remind others, the 'Yishuv' created labor and land segregation through the JNF and other Zionist institutions. Israel created segregation by ongoing ethnic cleansing, dispossessing and pushing Palestinian populations into ghettos. Unless you go to the root, which is this forced segregation, it is useless to discuss particular effects -- like 50 laws to ensure segregation, or like the brutality of police against Palestinians peacefully demonstrating against segregation. Yes?

If Munayyer is saying that the problem is how to attain justice, then what I am amplifying is not only justice, but power.

The problem is that the Palestinian was made subservient by being repeatedly ethnically cleansed, having his or her home and land given away to Jews, and being forced into ghettos.

So the problem is breaking out of all the ghettos, out of subservience.

Now, one would think that the surest place to start is in the ghettos of the north. But people in Haifa watched how brutally the Israeli police put down peaceful protests against the Gaza massacre, not to speak of those others whose minds are so colonized that they think that they came to Palestine on an Aliya boat.

If you looked at U.S. de jure segregation the point of it was that the white person was proud of their white racial characteristics, to the extent that they didn't want to lose it by mixing with any other race. That is the same logic that today drives Israel. To say Israel is all about keeping an emergency place where persecuted Jews could always flee to, it's a lie, if only because Israel is a danger zone (as is always pointed out.) Since Beinart expects us to accept the desire for a "Jewish State" ipso facto, I've had to reach the conclusion that Beinart sees Israel as a museum where "Jewishness" is attempted to be conserved for posterity, by barriers preventing mixing. Especially against mixing with Muslims.

Israel is a place where Jews are rewarded for not mixing by being given a sustained competitive advantage over others.

The other side of Beinart's coin is his fear of violence in the implementation of a 1ss. But violence against Palestinians already exists, so one has to assume he just fears Palestinian-on-Jew or Jew-on-Jew violence. The latter is frankly more likely in the implementation of a 2ss than a 1ss (do you think settlers will ever give up their homes, never mind Jerusalem, without a fight?) As to the former it sounds like Beinart is suffering from a certain stereotype, forgetting the entire context of who it was that created that stereotype and who it was that used it to destabilize the Middle East.

Anyhow, Beinart's fantasy solution against mixing is that Palestinian citizens will be limited in number, and live separately. That in itself is mindblowing. With a few touch-ups and reforms, he tells you that Palestinian citizens can integrate into the Jewish-only economy while still being told which street they can live on and which schools they can therefore send their children to. And he is counting on Palestinian citizens to agree to be separated in this relatively comfortable (because already familiar) but economically catastrophic way than to have real power.

Liberation for everyone, Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, starts with desegregation within, now. That pillar of racism down the whole power structure crumbles. If so, the choice of a solution is not 2ss or 1ss, but binational vs. a democratic republic.

Munayyer began with “you can't have a productive debate on solutions if you can't agree on the problem.”

Well, Beinart is telling us that the problem of Isra-Palestine is how to avert a "clash of two nations" – and Munayyer is saying that the problem is how to attain justice for those who are denied rights: to vote, to return, and to live in equality.

But the mutually concealed question is one of segregation - and desegregation.

The ‘separate development’ of areas with two separate languages and two sets of textbooks in public schools is what is manufacturing the "clash of two nations" discourse in the first place. And segregation is what prevents and will continue to prevent justice and equal rights by reproducing and amplifying economic inequality.

Beinart actually limits the arc of all possible solutions for the purported problem of a "clash of two nations" as: either two states (which he endorses) or a *binational* state (which he fears will lead to violence). Because he prefers to see the problem as a "clash of nations", rather than as a problem of segregation and desegregation, he mutes discussion of a democratic republic, for that would entail desegregation and economic restructuring to correct a legacy of ethnic cleansing, segregation, and rights abuses.

Munayyer, like Beinart, seems to be concealing the underlying problem of segregation, which is the main conundrum not only for Jewish citizens but for Palestinians as well.

Palestinians feel relatively safe and protected in their segregated spaces, but if they think they can ever have equality or dignity without putting on the line their segregated comfort zone they are only fooling themselves.

On this point the RoR may actually make things easier by boosting desegregation. Returning refugees won't be willing to wait for the Jewish Israelis to integrate them, they won’t be as willing to wait for Jewish Israelis to make up their mind that they are qualified to live on the same street. And they will demand that children integrate into Isra-Palestinian schools where different narratives are taught in whatever language it is.

Isra-Palestine has an even worse problem in desegregation than Jim Crow because they've even contrived to segregate language, and so now they'll sure have to break their heads over how to deal with that one! But at least the desegregation problem won't be buried and concealed.

+1.
@ “i think he will change eventually.” Who cares? He targets those don’t have a deep knowledge of the issues, uses fog and tricks to create illusions, and saves his cheapest as a last resort.

For example, he fails to pull the great refugee “disappear-and-switch stunt” (i.e., turning Jewish immigrants into “refugees”, turning Palestinian refugees into “immigrants”, and referring to the two discriminatory RoR laws as just “immigration policy”.) Then he gets called out (Wait! It is not an immigration policy. It is a refugee policy. It is an anti-refugee policy… it’s a discriminatory refugee policy! ).

So Beinart, forced to kind of concede that he failed to turn Palestinian returnees into “immigrants” and Jewish immigrants into returnees, takes cover under his ever-ready second-best: that’s true, but my own mother from Alexandria was a refugee and she didn’t have the RoR either. I thought we were talking about Israel’s present discrimination and denial of human rights? He just used the cheapest Hasbara in the Whataboutery and Looktheotherway and Jewsarevictimstoo book -- almost in the same category as his, “Why don’t you BDS Saudi Arabia?” Anyone who stoops that low to create a fog around the issues to dupe the least informed, who cares if he will change his mind and see the light eventually? Eventually, a democratic desegregated 1ss will force him to see the light.

@YF --"In south africa’s case the collapse of the life expectancy is due to the plague of Aids, but the collapse of the economy that i am predicting for this alternate history [1ss] is due to the weakness (allergy to democracy and transparency) of the two Palestinian parties."

"Yonah Fredman", the economic gaps in South Africa are not due to HIV/AIDS, they are due to neoliberal policies that closed their eyes to AIDS and did nothing, and more to the point they did nothing to address a legacy of hypersegregation and economic inequality. It was neoliberals (in the manner of Fayyad whom you extol here) whose economic program widened the gaps. These mistakes are what we should take lessons from. And in the U.S. too: when they finally ended Jim Crow they never compensated the victims nor half-addressed the legacies of hyper-segregation. Those are the lessons we take to heart. When Isra-Palestine is desegregated it will be with compensation, restitution &affirmative action to address the legacies of hyper-segregation.

(pssst.... In case you didn't notice, it's the Palestinian people who are teaching the 'Jewish' Israelis about what democracy is and isn't, hardly the other way around!)

That neighborhood of Wa'd's was where one grandfather's shop was selling razors and gew gaws. Most who grew up there inside Quds were moved in the mid 60's to Shuafat refugee camp -- today a third world hell hole with a wall and concrete watchtower, and they've ensured that all the young males who could think are addicts. There is no love if you don't also hate. Malcolm X.

For a 1s1P1V, much can be in the hands of the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

It is complex, because some of them, not all, have turned into Zionist tools, or into Zionists themselves. Those from the socialist party have been duped into thinking that a 1ss is "impossible". Here we have Odeh giving up, wholesale, on the refugee rights in Isra-Palestine, promoting “the right of the Palestinian people to have their own state....his audience will include every major Israeli politician...and Sarkozy." Meanwhile he gets small perks like "committees" (made up a 3:1 Jewish/Palestinian ratio) to "discuss" "reforms". Not to mention many Druze become Zionist tools in the IOF. Many citizens think they can integrate and get to the top of the system rather than work to overturn the system. The most tragic part is they are deluded into thinking that they themselves will EVER have equality in 100% segregation. They are duped into thinking that they can live in separated cities and go to separate language schools and ever know civic equality. There is no such thing as separate but equal. A few people will get to be elites but the main population will always remain racially stratified with Palestinians on the very bottom -- one up above refugees from Sudan and Eritrea. But then again, many are rightly and understandably afraid in the current situation to desegregate the schools, because their children come from such a lower socio-economic standing that they will become easy prey to humiliation by well-off Jewish kids of their age who come from the gated communities and suburbs of the heavily-invested 'Judaized' areas of the north.

"the third step is engaging in serious conversation about what the practical implementation of a new system would look like. So many of the questions that Peter threw out to scare us all away from an alternative situation can be answered in a serious and rigorous way. "

Discussing the 1ss always has two sides: principle vs practice. The principle of democracy should be put before calculations of what 'can't' be done. The principle of democracy should also be put before the dead horse fact.

In fact right wing settlers and annexationists deserve some credit for being much more astute than liberal zionists in that they fully realize that in the entirely theoretical moment a 2ss comes to exist, the center of attention will turn to the apartheid within. At that moment that Israel hypothetically rids itself of the 67 occupation, a vacuum will be created and people are going to increasingly notice the totally segregated cities and segregated schools and they're going to say, "no such thing as separate but equal."

And THAT segregation is what keeps Beinart's "Jewish character" of Israel intact. For you can't have a "Jewish character" anymore when people risk using the same residences, the same institutions, the same schools, the same languages, the same beds, the same jobs, the same economy. In the end the wishful 2ss will only have put off the inevitable. And Beinart should truly reconsider the settler p.o.v.

A crucial point that has been given far too little emphasis is that liberal Zionism would still have a problem with apartheid even if the 2ss were actually realized. A 2ss harbors apartheid, as follows: (1) two separate laws regarding RoR. This not only predetermines a "Jewish" demography , but you have to realize that when someone makes "Aliya" they get a bonus package from the govt which includes enormous freebies and advantages in education, housing and language (Ulpan). For decades this has skewed the income disparities between "Jews" and Palestinians. It is not for nothing that Palestinian towns have a different economy, everything sold at half the Jewish market price. Palestinian Israelis have for decades been the Jews' source of cheap labor. (2) This is compounded by the "Judaization project" of the Naqab/Negev and the Galillee which would continue even under a 2ss. . Also the Naqab Bedouin live in shanty towns without electricity or running water and this would continue even under a 2ss. (3) Ethnic residential segregation and segregated public schools: Unfortunately, Israel is a country where entire cities and towns and kibbutzim are Jewish only. This Jim Crow system would continue even under a 2ss. In the Palestinian schools, Hebrew is taught as a second language, which predetermines lower outcomes in competing in the work force. There are laws in Israel which allow selection committees in housing. This would remain even with a 2ss.

Liberal zionists like Beinart delude themselves that reducing the "Palestinian problem" to the 20% Israeli-Palestinian population would solve the apartheid problem.

@Donald "I can understand why Palestinians, especially young men, would favor shooting back at the Israelis, but it doesn’t work. "

1. ) First let's get rid of the violent/nonviolent dichotomy, shall we? The Zionist project (incl. JNF, Jewish Agency, Histadrut and ALL Zionist institutions) uses institutional violence to impoverish Palestinians, imprison them, and take away their human and civil rights.

2.) It doesn't work? Say what? Without Hamas using armed resistance this last summer, Israel would have done its few days of grassmowing and moved on. The guerilla resistance heroically engaged Israel for over a month, forcing Israel to show its hand and deconstructing the myths Israel tells itself and the world. As a result of the resistance, the Gaza massacre has in turn engaged people around the world in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, in segregated Israel, and in the Palestinian 'diaspora'.

3.) The struggle is ongoing. It's people who say "it doesn't work" who insidiously aim to prevent it from "working" in the end.

4.) The right to self defense is not based on whether it "will work". Self defense is itself a right.

5.) The United STates civil rights (so-called "nonviolent") movement would not have "worked" as it did without the parallel "work" of black power.

6.) Likewise in South Africa, the end of formal apartheid was not accomplished without the armed "work" of the Pan African Congress, MK, etc.

7.) "especially young men" = ha. You make it seem as if to use armed resistance, with all its risks, were merely something visceral and hormonal.
FYI armed resistance to colonialism has intellectual roots - it is a little deeper than "shooting back at the Israelis", it involves defining a better society.

8.) The gradual turn to arms is inevitable given a situation where nonviolent resistance is brutally put down. So the question of whether it "works" should give way to the question of how to use it and control it in the best way.

The point is, why doesn’t Israel become that “state of and for all of its citizens, immigrants, expats and refugees, equally” ? But you want separation, which will effectively allow Israel to keep its 99% segregated cities and segregated schools, not to speak of its Zionist institutions designed to keep the non-indigenous always in the majority, and in cultural control. Now, you agree that the Palestinians have been exploited and robbed and terrorized and impoverished. And that if Palestinians now live in slums, it’s only because of the success of the Zionist project. If the “solution” is putting them NOW in their own separate state, yes I’d call that a Jim Crow State. Israel was built on the backs of Palestinian kids, and they have a share in it.
So to even discuss a “sovereign, independent and viable Palestine”, before you even get into the shocking nuts and bolts of it, you first have to confront the principle behind the idea.

@"Those are all extremely logical and sensible thoughts and ideas Eljay. Well stated"

I swallowed my anger until now, but what it actually sounds like is advice to push for a Jim Crow Nation, politically and economically dependent on Israel, the U.S.A., the World Bank, and IMF's death-loans. Somehow it just seems to me a little more logical and sensible to push for an equal share of those nice middle class suburbs that were created by systematically and institutionally expelling, ghettoizing, and impoverishing your children and your parents.

Yes well that's just the thing. For a Jewish-Israeli people raised under total segregation and apartheid, one can understand it's as hard for a non-racist, pluralistic idea to get in their head as it is for a camel to get through a needle's eye or something like that. Fine! But then what's the NYT's excuse, for naturalizing the phrase "demographic threat / death warrant" as if it deserves no attention in itself? That's the thing.

The Palestinian resistance began with pushing for one democratic state. Through institutional violence (JNF, Histadrut, Jewish Agency, IDF, language, &c.), Zionists have succeeded in pushing Palestinians into separate zones, and thereby creating a 99% racially segregated state in terms of legal rights, resource access, the job market, housing, and education. This is what Rudern/NYT is promoting. However the 1ss is now returning to discourse, BOTH because the 2ss is no longer physically viable, and primarily because Israel was built on the backs of Palestinians whom it had to segregate, oppress and exploit, whereas they have a fair share of ALL of it.

"Most Israeli Jews, as well as many outside experts, see either such a one-state solution or the return of all refugees and their descendants as a demographic death warrant for Israel as a Jewish state, which is how it was founded in 1948. "

(1) "Most Israeli Jews" = of COURSE Israeli Jews do, because they've been freakin raised in segregated Jewish-only neighborhoods, Jewish only cities, Jewish only laws and Jewish only schools for god's sake. How else would you want them to think?

(2) "as well as many outside experts" = name them. (You can't, because they are all Zionists with interests in keeping racial privileges.)

(3) "Death warrant". = Not a death, but a birth of a democratic state with equal civil rights for all. The return of refugees is a self-evident human right. I fail to see what the discussion is about unless Rudoren and the New York Times are making a claim against basic civil and human rights.

(4) "which is how it was founded in 1948". = in the best case, Israel was envisioned as a homeland, which term does not exclude all the land as being a homeland of all the people. equally. But you are right in the sense that in practice Zionists founded Israel in 1948 on a basis where Palestinians are a demographic threat.
Hence Zionism kills.

"if you/Phil wants to bring the discussion to include my 20 year old reformed friend, it will have to meet on some kind of common ground other than the in your face max style."

Maybe you think the truth has to change the way it looks in order to catch more people. Maybe you think the truth -- the truth about Isratine, we're talking about -- has to be less "in-your-face" in order to secure your “20 yr old reformed friend.” If she wants the truth (the truth about Isratine!) , she’ll have to try to get it. And if her sense of Jewish-American “identity” don’t seem to fit, she can ask herself why. And if she lost it, maybe she can remember where she left it...

Palestinian resistance began with one state with equal rights for all -- and now, after the death of the 2ss, the people are again turning to one state with equal rights for all. The 1ss is not a "strategy", it rests on self-evident moral truths and needs no Hasbara. Those oppressed will redesign a more democratic and economically inclusive state, taking lessons from other historical transitions.

That's the first lesson for you Neggy. Land is not Jabotinsky's piece of cloth, it has people on it.

Thanks for the geometry lesson, presumably you didn't notice how your own "strategy" creates the grossest state crimes and state terror, on daily and yearly bases.

I take it more like this--- “Palestinians have a right to be a free people on their land, as well. (Applause.) Now, I want to emphasize — that’s not easy. The Palestinians are not the easiest of partners. (Laughter.)”

It's plainly about averting the one state solution, as everyone in that Synagogue knows.

O: “Palestinians have a right--” (that's just the set up…)

O: “Palestinians have a right to be a free people on THEIR land!” (That’s the baseline denial of democracy, an idea involving equal rights and belonging for all people.)

Response: Applause.

O: But wait. “Now, I want to emphasize — that’s not easy.” (ha, easy as eating apple pie; easy as flattering Zios; easy as the PA accepting even a powerless Bantustan “state”.)

O: “The Palestinians are not the easiest of partners.” (Here's the joke: Hurry up and choose the easy 2ss Bantustan now, the PAuthority are the easiest rape victims you’ll ever have. )

The right of blacks to equal protection under the law should be supported as much as the right of a coercive Jewish majority in Israel-Palestine should be supported. It's not any analogy, it's an insult .

“Your inability to correctly draw a direct line indicates that you are either an idiot or a sycophant toward Zio-supremacism, Barry O.”

Both. First he asks you what you think about “Israel having a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people” (=the BASELINE) but he knows what you’re going to say, the obvious, that Israel-Palestine has a right to exist as a nation for all its people equally, and the corollary, the equal right of return. So he tries to insult you: you are ignorant and HE has a problem with YOU!

...And that comment about there being a direct line of continuity between African Americans’ rights to vote in the United States and the Jewish-Israeli military and political rule over Palestinians deserves never, ever, ever, to be forgotten.

The liberal head of the unfortunately-called "Arab" Party List, he didn't call on Palestinians to "acknowledge the Holocaust". That would have been normal. But what he abnormally says is that there is a hierarchy of crimes against populations, and anyone making comparisons between this particular genocide and other genocides is "connected to a mechanism of evil" -- EVIL, mind you, and note where the biblical rhetoric comes from. Whereas there are many comparisons indeed to be made; and whereas some of those comparisons specifically concern Palestinian populations; and whereas various recent genocides have emanated from structures held in common; and whereas Palestinian citizens are not only supposed to stand in silence with regard to these comparisons, but to stand in silence while being denied by law even the right to study our own history in school. Denied even the right to study our own history in our racially and lingually separated school.

But there is nothing surprising about this, nor about Peace Now leaders serving in the West Bank, nor about Ellis's own elision here, through the mislabel of "dead ends", of the way progressive liberalism works.

"The only hope is for an international intervention, and the only hope is from this place, from Washington, from the United States, from the EU. Only from there. "

Since WHEN is the "only hope" supposed to be from the Euro-supremacists? Since when is the "only hope" for the colonized to be from the neo-colonizers?!

No, the real hope is a kind of 'Black Power'.

GL denies: (1) the longstanding global structures that create kinship between Palestinians and other global oppressed; (2) the abilities of the colonized, when organized and conscious; (3) the legitimacy of armed struggle against colonization.

@"what is the power that will actually be in the hands of these 13 members...?"

A: Getting the Zionist creeps all riled up --- well that's at least one better than being a Herzogian "mosaic" for the Zionist creeps to admire and walk on. Even an animal "drove moving to the polls" acknowledges presence.

But resistance isn't ever inside govt -- and as Pappe says, "the time has come to look for new forms of representation and action."

@echino "If and when Zionists can be pressured enough [to accept a 2ss], it would only mean that they are too weak to do anything." There you are wrong. Most Zios want a 2ss of poverty-ridden bantustans dependent on Israel, meaning that the PA is the most dangerous side of this equation simply because they might agree to 2ss.

A rightful and equal share in a one state solution, with reparations, is in the best interests of Palestinians and of any decent person. People living in systems of total segregation that give them privileges cannot be expected to understand human rights and decency. Democracy does not spring from people bred from birth in ideologies of apartness and cultural superiority.

The people on the outside can enact resistance. At the very least, people must wage a global electronic intifada. That means the breaking down of the trust between US citizens and their own governments that support the "Jewish State". That is where the arena of battle lies. You learn how the government really works, how Senate committees really work, how neo-colonialism really works.

You would expect some resistance to being called the "Joint Arab List" which falls right into the Zio discursive lap. At least say "Joint Palestinian List" to remind us of being an integral part of the Palestinian people. Joint Anti-Zio List is best because it brings the argument forward. But even of this symbolic move they are afraid - I can see no other explanation for it. And again, my anger is directed here, because from Jewish citizens who are bred in structural separation and ignorance one can expect nothing.

@"The Joint List included the Jewish-Arab party Hadash which fielded a Jewish candidate, Dov Khenin"
Indeed, and Hadash also supports a 2ss (what for??? They say it's because a 1ss is not "practical") and also accepts being called the Joint "Arab" List -- again, why? In order to avoid being called the Anti-Zionist List? As if running on the Anti-Zionist ticket in Israel is like running on the Joint Anti-American Party in the US. I don't like it. This is not the way to change the discourse and upheave the system. And you don't rely on Zios to do that!

@Bandolero: "the only viable solution to the I/P problem is ending the zionist project to create one state in Palestine with equal rights for all people "

Yes. However, the so-called "Arab" list have yet to say the words "One State". They are not. That is the biggest problem. The 2ss is actually their official platform! And while we're at it, on the eve of elections, it was someone's job to force Netanyahu to repeat "there will never be a Palestinian state" to their face and take it from there. Well now it is brushed off as a meaningless slogan. And lastly, if a party was going to allow themselves to be dubbed the "Arab" list then I say they shouldn't complain later, when campaigners tell voters that "the Arabs" are mobilizing to the polls. They should have demanded respect as the united Non-Zionist list. But in Israel that risks being called "traitors" and they didn't want that. I don't expect anything from a Zio Israeli - absolutely nothing- because every aspect of their lives is steeped in ignorance of and superiority to the other. But one should expect the words "One State Solution" and "economic compensation" to come out of every Non-Zio mouth.

@seafoid: “Israeli Jews are educated to hate Palestinians”. The other day a progressive lib-Zio voting for the Zionist bloc said, “I actually think the Arab List is a good thing; the Arabs have come to understand what democracy is. They still have a long way to go, but they are improving.” As if Jewish-Staters would even recognize democracy. As if Palestinians have to be “improved’ by them - the sheer colonialism in that.

If they allow themselves to be called the "Arab" List instead of the Non-Zionist List, as if there is something wrong or needing to be concealed about being an anti-Zionist, or as if a certain world view comes from being an "Arab", this spells capitulation and cooperation before they've even begun. To be worthy of trust these days it's absolutely necessary to say *Anti--Zionist* loud and proud. If they can't say they're anti-Zionists, and say it very loud, they are cooperators with the oppressor. That's just to be clear. If they can't risk the consequences of saying they're Non-Zionists - what will they ever risk? So that's the people's job - to push them.

"There was an article in Haaretz by a Palestinian Israeli that he’s voting for Meretz because he ...wants separation [b/w] religion and state"? Yes, that would be in Haaretz wouldn't it. LOL, as long as you demonize the Islamic party which is somehow supposed to be essentially different from a 'Jewish-State' party like Meretz predicated on Jews remaining the demographic majority in Israel for ever and ever, and Jews maintaining control over all institutions, and having the sole right of return.

I don't really see how trying to discredit people's insights into the fundamental injustice of Israel (where people can't vote in national elections today on the basis of a wrong ethnicity), and trying to do this on the basis of a misplaced apostrophe, is really "elevating things".

RE: American "support for Israel is widespread and deep" -- I get that this is your primary hasbara.

We should talk about what "support for Israel" means, because I personally don't have any clue. Enlighten me.

Secondly, the approval rating of the United States Congress itself has shrunk to the point where it is no longer even detectable by the technology currently available. Even the Congress that people voted for, whose job is to support Israel "unconditionally", has no support!

Thirdly, by excluding, disingenuously, the causal explanation of direct influence through the buying of Congressional "support", you are still suggesting that popular "support for Israel" (w.t.m.) is due to the indirect influence of capital (via the circ. of information and ideas).
So back to square one.

@hophmi --"You’ve turned that into “we went to war only because of Israel’s push” something that is not remotely implied by Kerry’s statement"

Who was behind it? Who 'pushed' it? Who 'did' it, "hophmi"? "Who got the tar, who got the feathers/Who had the match, who set the fires/Who killed and hired?" --A.Baraka

"We hear the questions rise
In terrible flame like the whistle of a crazy dog
Like the acid vomit of the fire of Hell
Who and Who and WHO who who
Whoooo and Whooooooooooooooooooooo!'
-----------------
Who?

The term (was it dual citizen Michael Chertoff's?) tries to bury the realities of the surveillance state, and its militarized, privatized police, by smuggling in the nationalistic lingo of "Homeland".

The term "Homeland" is a tool for undermining either democracy, or sovereignty.

"American Homeland" and "US Homeland Security" register as creepy because they play on a duality. Either there are two kinds of *Americans* (those for whom the U.S. is, or is not, their natural "Home'"), or there are two kinds of *Lands" (one land is ostensibly the place of self-rule, and the other is for the ownership and control of remote resources and subject peoples.)

And * it * doesn't * even * matter * if * you * happen * to * be * Jewish * or * not.

To be divested of responsibility for Israel, or for what *your government* does , to quote Netanyahu, "in behalf of the people of Israel", you MUST, at the very least, embrace the higher principle of equal individual rights, as well as compensation for state crimes. Nothing aon earth can have moral priority this principle.

Sure. Btw, credible sources cite Bin Laden as having died from disease in 2001. This may seem off point; but "there's no reason to believe" anything , coming from govt bureaus, unless independently verified and there is an open and fair trial (without the suspects having undergone torture.)

Aye, and to repeat what just says, no one can convince me murderers were either unidentified for *weeks* or, later, out on the loose for *months* in the hyper-surveilled occupied territory; not in the Hebron area ffs. No way.
Not to mention the various things about the pernicious "3 kidnapped teens" story that simply stink; that is, unlike the actual telltale corpses which were 'discovered' after three weeks--&c.

"I find it depressing to see an American, living in a comparatively civilised part of America, whining about not feeling “settled” because most of the people around her are not Jews"

Tough life in the shitshow. Missing those "fluffy matzah balls and pastrami sandwiches". Poor little Rebecca is the only one who doesn't realize.

American university cities: #no kosher eatery on the block.
Israel: #matzah balls and pastrami sandwiches, yet also filthily racist, undemocratic, morally unsustainable, small, has drafts, is dry and is unsafe. And now the 'douchebags' are actually pressing you in your innermost privates.

He he. Do send some cash.

(And another fresh batch of well-off, white-skinned, dumbed-down teenage dupes on their free Birthright trips to ensure that the 'Jewish demographic balance' exists.)

Exclusionary covenants -- which specifically barred real estate sales to Blacks, Jews, and other minorities – were legal in the United States from the mid-19th century until the civil rights era. I’m sure you’d long to have those restrictive covenant days back in America, ‘DoubleStandard’. You can’t, but, luckily, you can move to Israel where they are now legal.

"I’m currently in a 'Jewish' neighborhood and there are plenty of Arabs walking around."
Wow, kol hakavod! "Arabs" are actually allowed to walk around? Without leashes?

Psst. I’m currently in a 'Jewish' neighborhood and there are plenty of Palestinians (well, not plenty; actually, there is, occasionally, one or another) walking around, looking in the Jewish "tzfardea" (trash bin) for things to bring home.

@ 'foreign wars sunk our economy' -- our economy would have surely sunk too had Iraq, Libya etc. been allowed to dump the U.S.D. And is there any way to forestall the abandonment of the dollar except by gunpoint??? Not a rhetorical question. (And is there any way to wage this global currency war except by cultivating stupid anti-Islamism??? And isn't Zionism helpful in cultivating this stupidity?)

And so the story goes on, and so the progressive class keeps benefiting from these wars-for-the-dollar that they detest so much because on the other hand the wealth gaps widen... and so the oligarchs keep protecting the 'Jewish State' (ethno-military-industrial complex). And the 'Jewish State' paves its inroads into U.S. policy. And yet you speak of 'elections' and 'candidates'.

Yes, aside from the "offers" of equality he fantasizes about, there are others he’s forgetting. Good.
It's besides the point that all the Zio institutions from the first half of the 20thc (Histadrut? the JNF? Kibbutzim?) were created with the sole purpose of a Jewish-only monopoly over the land and labor markets; JeffB sees no contradiction in his statement that, once upon a time, the Zios “offered” equality. How can you “offer” what belongs to all?
Keeps reminding me of David Norris's, "he wouldn't recognise democracy if it puked in his face"--

On the contrary, the more you study it in depth the more you begin to see it was hardly child's play, it required immense control of institutions. Time people start taking an interest in it, seriously, it's the only thing that can derail the "savage" racism (Hamas=Muslims=Al Qaeda=Isis).

Relaaaax. At some point, you just pull off the bandaid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved, no? It's only an inquiry. A sharp, momentary pain, perhaps. And then...it's over, no? Well, maybe you're right, you'll still have all those dull, protracted nightmares about what they found, and then all those cold sweats in store, about the goblin of the bill of rights, not to mention the surgery of restitution and compensation, and then the phantom pains, and then when refugees come back and institutions are desegregated, as they should be, the economy is sure to go downhill, cause who will give that or'nary Middle Eastern state donations and freebies? But at least by then you'll be cured of that coughing fit of hasbarric bile, so try to relaaaax.

This is the meaning of biopower: "Israel is our progeny. Israel is how the American Jewish community will live on."
It is a technique of subjugation.

Am I your progeny, JeffB? Do you live through me? Wow. May you live to the age of 120 through my boiling veins. This is not "love, warmth, and caring" JeffB. No, no, no, this is a tactic of control. But the so-called "progenies" have had enough.

"did the Israeli immigrants all decide that they had a better and more nationally inspiring opportunity in Palestine?"

There were rehabilitation programs set up for survivors, for example in France and Sweden. Zionists sent Shlichim (basically hasbara ambassadors) who came as counselors and presided over Zionist youth movements. As the orphaned teens slowly rehabilitated and were nurtured back into a modicum of physical and psychological health, they also got a good daily dose of hasbara about how great it would be, and what a duty it was, to make aliya together as a youth group, pick oranges together, marry, ride white horses, get a college education, and fulfill their dreams. So they went together as organized groups under the auspices of the various Zionist youth movements-- and indeed some later felt brainwashed, purposely deceived by false promises, and exploited as cheap manual agricultural laborers. They obviously became ardent Zionists, but many of them also admitted anger as they had given up their chances of going to the university and fulfilling their professional dreams in the cosmopolitan European cities...

Insofar as the discourse has always been about extermination and expulsion, is has always been, as you say, "difficult to get excited" about the one state debate. But that is what is at the heart of the matter.

If there were one single law for everyone -- if there weren't a "Jewish State" with its capital in Jerusalem -- there would be no special reason for international donations and free gifts that shelter the economy and allow surplus value to be invested in the production of a powerful military industry complex that oppresses an entire population and destabilizes the region. As long as people "don't get excited" about the one state solution the statquo of exclusion & expulsion remains.

Posturing. The posture of a real civil rights desegregationist, a humanist, a staunch believer in democratic principles.... while he spouts the idea that Palestinians are 'cyanide', 'future traitors', who would never 'be loyal to the state', and therefore Israel can't allow them equal rights. To borrow from David Norris, he wouldn't recognize democracy if it puked in his face.

JeffB -- Maybe my powers of observation about Zionism 'suck'... but...this did come from you: "a country to live in (practically every inch of it racially segregated), an army to defend their interests (by raiding homes, humiliating the children &c), a strong economy for them to prosper economically (two separate economies, one for the Jews and one for the gentile people in the ghettos who only export their labor for the Jews), their self respect and dignity back (just see Mooser's comment), a unified culture and language (and a Unified Jerusalem to boot, with 80% of the Palestinian side of Jerusalem under the poverty line) and national allies (USA and Micronesia)"? Well keep on struggling hard for those equal civil rights and equal economic opportunities JeffB!

Greater Israel is a fallback position so that equal civil rights and equal economic opportunities could not break out.

Even the (unviable) "Two State Solution" is a fallback position; the real position has always been: branding as a "Jewish state", which means a guaranteed jewish demographic majority in "Proper" Israel, with separated educational systems, where residential areas are separated, and where so-called 'Jews' control all the institutions. The essential horror we are seeing is the absolute lengths Zios absolutely have to go, on a daily basis, to ensure a jewish state. It is falling into their trap to say, "well, when Greater Israel will burst, that is when Civil Rights in Israel will become the Greater problem."

Note that JeffB, with all that talk of separate administrations and "bi", is also eager to ensure that equal civil rights and equal economic opportunities could not break out.

+1.
That is what it's all about and that's what they've (we've) been doing, and the more experience and equipment and the more inroads they (we) build to bureaus in West Virginia the bigger and wilder and the more desperate do the underground operations seem to get. Imagine - all that, just as a precaution to prevent a one state solution.

JeffB can you agree to become an Israeli in the democratic or Isratinian sense?

"......which is what I think most Palestinians picture".
Indeed Palestinian voices are a bit stifled (what with your boots on their back, and all), and so they're lucky Zios are on cue to represent them.

"they are not educated"? Pardon but can you please pass the grey poupon? People on one side of the kahn-flict don’t like the people on the other side of the kahn-flict. These are ordinary West Jerusalemites living on the other side of the apartheid-line from East Jerusalemites. People on one side of racial segregation don’t like the people on the other side of the racial segregation.

@"show Congress how their burgeoning social experiment in the Mid East is doing."

Are people ready for the most radical, normal and moral solution ---equal civil rights for everyone--- or are they just trying to "show Congress" how bloody it all is, as if the congressionals didn't love the smell of blood?

Whether you believe the tail is wagging the dog, or that the dog is wagging its own tail, there's no way any of it could dishevel a single strand of hair on that trained and groomed congressional body that savors the scent of an eternally unstable, bloody Middle East. Of course being chained to a ferocious Israel comes as both a liability and a benefit; but for now, the two beasts do feed on the same prey.

Rania Masri: "We need to recognize what barbaric is. Barbaric is racism. Barbaric is defining Palestinians as a ‘demographic threat.’ A demographic threat and therefore considering that Palestinian existence is a threat to Israeli survival. Our existence is a threat to their survival, which means that the mere fact that we exist is justification for them to kill us. That is barbaric. That is racism. That is Zionism. And that is what we must end." http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/barack-meaning-barbaric.html

RE: "How representative are they?" A notion that Israel is burdened by "Arabs" in its midst is, after all, the essence of Zionism. These kids are not sophisticated enough to hide their solutions of choice under the flag of 'peace' and 'rights', they are not sophisticated enough to throw out lies and confusion, but they are at least knowledgeable enough to be very aware of the limits of what can be said in front of the foreign camera when they openly speak of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Well if you remember, the Zios' first tactic was, "We can do anything in Gaza; nobody cares about Palestinians." Then, when that fell off, the tactic shifted to, "The only ones in the world who care are Muslims in London and Berlin, who aren't worth anything anyway." By now they've had to change it to, "support for the pals is a no brainer.left wing feel good gravy train."

Benjamin Netanyahu said that the United States is something that “you can move very easily.”

That there are not only federal-level, but also separate state-level and municipality-level “Special Relationships with Israel” is especially alarming.

(How can Unites States foreign policy makers NOT be moved easily, when even public security and surveillance -- e.g., through ICTS, ZIM, AMDOCS and Ptech, to name a few -- can be owned/run by Israeli companies?)

The guys in the background are all just filing their nails and counterfeiting extreme indifference, as if their complicity weren't under the bright spotlight.

Still there’s the old softening of the edges. He condemns Obama for being ‘silent’, whereas of course Obama, far from being ‘silent’, was and is actively repeating Israel's insulting lies while replenishing Israel with fresh weapons. Also, he says the problem is the current rightist government and that 40 years ago Israel was somehow alright -- but that’s a joke. The problem is the ideology that requires Israel to have the branding of a Jewish State, with all that this lays on the stake *economically*: and, then, the impossibility of keeping the brand of the Jewish State without using bloody violence and oppression to keep a Jewish demographic majority and guarantee the Jewish control of all social institutions.
This he came short of saying: which lets you know where the strongest taboos are.
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@traintosiberia (below) – Since the beginning Israel has had a cynical policy of investing sheiks with an elevated status and privileges. This enforced a traditional patriarchal system and made the population easier to control; it also prevented Palestinian communities from becoming economically effective. Aside from that, yes it is thoroughly disgusting that the new cynical hasbarah-book mystification is that "Israel allows homosexuality", therefore occupied Palestinians should be happy.
This meme is now in popular use simply because it acts as a flechette bomb of lies that require a great deal of labor for the victim to extract, one by one. It is also a cluster bomb that flings out insults to human intelligence and basic reason. It is a stink bomb that thinks it can play upon 'liberal' sensitivities.

On the contrary, people enjoy restaurants precisely because they enable them to exoticize the Other. Case in point, tons of Israelis who love venturing across the segregation lines for an hour's visit to experience authentic Palestinian restaurants, where they can maybe exchange a few words with an authentic Palestinian waiter (servant). After this cultural experience they can return home to their Jewish-only streets located in Jewish-only neighborhoods, that lease and sell real estate to Jewish-only renters and buyers, so that their kids can go to Jewish-only schools and grow up to run Jewish-only institutions ensuring a Jewish-only economy. Eljay's point is well taken.

piotr: It's a speech act. The framing question, and the final proffered "choice", is not only a "sociological indicator", but also a message to Washington.

Secondly, and unrelatedly, I know I'm being such a nudnik, but... since the Zios themselves brought this up by association, let us indeed recall the anthrax letters and their text, because they were silly and desperate attempts of PR to frame Muslims, gone terribly wrong [**for hophmi's benefit: the anthrax letters exemplify 'Orientalism'] . For those who don't have energy for a basic research on the web, Graeme MacQueen speaks eloquently about this in "The Fictional Basis of the War on Terror".

traintosiberia. Obviously in imagining ebola envelopes to Obama, the israeli elites were harking back to the weaponized-anthrax envelopes sent to Democratic senators Daschle and Leahy. Ironically or not, those bio-weapon envelopes were supposedly the reason to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But that lie was busted when later it turned out that the anthrax came from a top security US military lab.

Weird: "An official of the U.S. administration said in March 2010 that President Barack Obama probably would veto legislation authorizing the next budget for U.S. intelligence agencies, if it called for a new investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks" --wikihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

Thanks, and it's just as well to repeat the following quote for those who don't follow the link you provided:
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "Do not listen to any voice that suggests we would be opposed to an action before the International Criminal Court. Some people say that Hamas or other resistance fighters could be the targets of such a procedure, but it is not true. It is only propaganda. Nothing that we do worries us. We are under occupation and it is our right, by law, to resist. And it is also the right of our people to be defended."

Yeah but there are cynics who say that Erekat &co. are merely requesting each faction to sign separately so as do do a little more foot dragging and to 'proceeeed withhhh cauaaatiiioooon.n.n.n.'

The PA won't get any pudding if they go to the ICC.

By the way did you hear of any of them doing anything this past month except being heartbroken, declaring that rockets from Gaza are war crimes, rethinking the unity deal out loud, endearing themselves to Zionists like ivri, and using their American-trained, Israel-informing 'room service' police force to prevent Palestinians from protesting?

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She has what i want, but she won’t let me simply do as i will. She’s defending herself, so i have to beat and kill her. It’s her fault. She's been digging and digging her own grave. In a way it's so cruel, yet if she didn’t fight back i wouldn’t have to be brutal. She’s making me do this terrible thing. If she just let me do as i will, i wouldn’t need to be brutal. She’s the one bringing out my brutality, so she’s the one that’s evil. The terrible things this woman is making me do! Oh my god, I just did it, I just killed her! It sounds cruel.

Except that the US "War on Terror" (which as you say was "not good at preserving lives", lol) was actually orchestrated, promoted and supported by the Israel Lobby, Zionist think tanks (PNAC), Zionist policy papers ("A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"), and Israeli heads of state (e.g., see Ehud Barak's "interview on BBC an hour after 9/11 attacks").
Israel is implicated in the loss of life directly caused by US forces, and so what's your point? (*BTW that loss of life also includes 7,000+ American soldiers and another 4,000+ vet suicides. There's something like a rate of a suicide a day now among American vets.)

@Bandolero & ritzl,
+1.
The Zionist-led massacre upon bare human life in occupied Gaza (including a war on information through the corporate-media-military-industrial complex) is one of the symptoms of larger systematic failures.

The horror of Gaza is compounded by how much we already know about history, thanks to the internet, and by how powerless we feel to stop history from happening before our eyes. The human catastrophe of Gaza is compounded by the fact that it is only a continuance of a predictable trajectory--and by the ever-dawning realization that US citizens have no influence over our supposed elected leaders and representatives.

The massacre in Gaza is not historically or strategically isolated. And it is structurally linked to the active support, on the part of the Israel Lobby and Zionist think tanks, for US invasions and destabilization of at least seven countries in Central Asia and Africa.

@Hophmi, is there anything Israel could theoretically do to make you stop supporting it?

What is the meaning of "unconditional support for Israel", as spouted by a line of US presidents? If we seem to you "obsessed" by this question, it is because at stake is indeed the larger system, -- viz., representative democracy, US sovereignty, accountability to international law, the freedom of news networks, and, ultimately, the fate of the Palestinian people or any other people whom Israel may in the future deem a danger to its regional hegemony.

Hophmi says: Why do you obsess over Israel? To those who send me angry tweets about my supporting Israel's slaughter of 1,815 Palestinians in Gaza, I also supported, for the sake of Israel and at a cost of $US 2 trillion, the slaughter of some 1,455,590 Iraqi civilians in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. I also supported, for the sake of Israel, the US destabilization of Syria causing more than 110,000 deaths. And I would have you know I would in future also support, for the sake of Israel, a US invasion of Iran, causing millions of deaths. Why do you obsess over Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and why can’t you just stay the same dumb dupes you were in the 1990’s?

@bilal a
Thanks for bringing that up. Comments on this are limited here, so I'm going to make it general. For anyone who asks, "the Israeli control of American foreign policy is terrible, but what can we do about it?" One answer: demand an independent, international re-investigation of September 11. Such an investigation would lay bare the corruption, and pave the way for much needed reforms.

@Kay24,
We all realize that something is terribly wrong with the system. Our system. Not Israel's system. Their system is fine, functioning consistently, even rationally, and according to their own national consensus, following their own codes and hierarchies. If the way was opened, really they can't be blamed for entering in. But it is our own system that appears inconsistent. It is our own system that is broken and that needs to be thrown out.

Yeah, Mira Bar Hillel's righteous anger didn't go down so well here either. Other than what you mention, you get the feeling she would not have been so much "on the brink" had the same sentiments been aired by someone else (let's say, a working-class middle-aged brown-skinned woman), or just in private. It's a common enough sentiment around here after all. It's as if what had really bothered her was that this Shaked woman publicly polluted the image of Israeli 'enlightenment' and 'innocence' (which Bar Hillel naturally associates with the image of the Western, European-looking, upper middle class, well-educated Ashkenazim.) Desecrated and polluted, indeed. Makes you angry enough to almost burn your Id card and then write an article about it for the New York Times.

Spare me Erekat. I read that Kerry spoke to Abbas on the phone today, can be no good. I heard they were purposely 'proceeding with caution' and slowing down the ICC process into which they were pressured at last. Spare me Erekat's blame of Israel-- for 'failing' to recognize the right of Palestine in the 67 borders. The blame is for crimes against humanity! And, next, the blame is for a dirty war and lies (btw, not only Obama but also Ban Ki-moon gave a free ride to Israel's shoddy narrative, accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire, and called for the allegedly captured soldier's immediate release). Israel now plans to declare a "victory" in this "war". They informed Beit Lahiya residents that they could return to their homes, but warned them against what it said were "explosives spread across the area by Hamas'" -- the insult has no end. The talk of 67 borders, Oslo agreements and road maps is also insulting, afaik the discourse has moved on in the land of Isratine.

Well and why not? They've been given a blank cheque over and over and are emboldened to realize their wildest fantasies. Grab all the land and mow the inhabitants. Even just writing those words in the mainstream press rather than in Arutz Sheva and Israel Today must give them exhilaration. Just look at ohiojoes' comment above: nobody cares (so he says): go for the whole hog.

However, this has raised political consciousness among ordinary working people across the world. It has mobilized the grassroots. Israel's cards have been exposed. The tactic of collaboration has been rejected. Hamas came out brave. The images of Gaza will remain to haunt the global collective memory like the images of Abu Ghraib. New unions have formed. The dollar keeps floating, and the sharks keep circling. There is no return to the "status quo ante".

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